Where Could I Be

By Loretta Moore

    A wall of water washed over me, thirty-year-old, single Larry Jackson and I struggled against it as it pushed me downward toward death’s cold embrace. I fought hard to hold on to life but found myself drifting into a frightening, dark watery mass. I felt like Jonah in the belly of a whale. Loneliness engulfed me.

    A white light traveled toward me, and I felt myself dissolving into a world of shadows and realms and dimensions on a boundless journey, walking in a Valley of Peace. I faced a magical land in a faraway place, a lost horizon in a location stashed away in time immemorial. I stepped into a pasture of gray, unfounded territory with an expanse of mystery surrounding me and I felt exhilarated in that uncultivated, organic simplicity. I’d gone beyond my imagination to something presenting life as never before. A higher spirit took over and I fell into sumptuous solitude with time and distance.     

    Life flowed alongside of me, a modulated stream lifting me, lifting me from darkness and fear to a place transformed by silence and solemnity. I felt the presence of hope, aspiration, and inspiration—ivy campus halls, simple abodes’ chimneys puffing, and every other wind-blown sign of bliss. I felt eternal peace.

***

    I, Larry Jackson will now tell you my story that began with a harrowing experience in August 2009.

    “Larry, did you light the grill? With all this meat we have to cook, you need to get started, Sharon O’Donnell said, clearly impatient. “You guys never get things going early enough. Michelle’s already making the pesto and I’m doing a fruit. Judy’s made potato salad. Jimmy’s gone to the store for more ice.”

    “Honey, I’m on my way,” I smilingly responded. Sharon O’ Donnell, the woman I love, had come into my life and caused everything to seem brighter. Not only was she physically beautiful, she possessed many qualities that I admire—honesty, intelligence and more. Plainly speaking, Sharon O’Donnell made me feel better than anyone before. She took the recklessness out of me, settled me down. I loved her deeply and everything about her assured me she felt the same. As a matter of fact, I was only two steps from proposing marriage. I just wished I could make my mother view Sharon from my eyes, change her feelings toward Sharon.

    Getting with Sharon and friends at the Long Island retreat was just what I needed after of a week of the fast-paced, hectic world of Wall Street and Manhattan.

    That morning something troubled me as I looked outside at the darkness, clouds gathering as if a heavy rainstorm was nearby. It wasn’t like anything I’d experienced and I couldn’t pinpoint the problem. I thought that maybe the recent demands at work caused me to feel this edginess. Lately, my boss, Bob Ross, pushed me more than ever.

    “We need more clients, Larry,” my fifty-seven-year-old boss told me, sounding more aggressive than usual. I thought, certainly, our financial group, with the highest earnings ever, didn’t require pressuring clients for the sake of gain. However, I did consider that perhaps Bob’s recent cancer diagnosis might have a role in his personality change.

   Usually, my Long Island retreat represented a place I went to relax and wash away all of my concerns. After time spent there I rejoined the Manhattan Wall Street chaos revived and ready. My modest, Long Island, three-bedroom wood frame looks anything but spectacular, though many of the homes are bigger and luxurious. Best of all, a beautiful, relaxing sandy beach is just steps from my front door. I have fond memories of spending summers at my family’s New Jersey beach house as a child. My father would shut down his construction business and we’d leave Philadelphia for our Jersey Shore summer residence. Because he ran a business back in Philly, he’d stay for about two weeks while my sisters Simmie and Jamie and my mother and I remained there for most of the summer. Otherwise, he’d rejoined us on the weekends. To this day, my parents and my sisters and their families continue to enjoy the New Jersey family summer home.

    What’s going on? I remember asking myself that fateful day. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something huge, dramatic and even threatening was about to happen. Following Sharon’s orders, I grabbed my baseball cap and went out the back door to get the grill going. Feeling somewhat foggy-headed, I lit the grill and soon got the meats cooking.

    “Hey guys, how about we go down to the beach ‘n’ take a dip?” I shouted, rejoining my group of friends staying at the house. We’d all stayed up ‘til well into the morning. As I said before at the beach house, it was all about fun, fun, fun. “We got the meats goin.’ That’s gonna take some time,” I called back. I heard tired grumblings as they began to stir.                                                                        

    “Hey, yall! I’m goin’ ta try to walk those waves out there!” I shouted as I jumped up from the beach floor and trotted across the warm sand. It was hot and I looked forward to cooling off. Plus, I’d had too much to drink the night before and probably whacked out my body’s thermostat. In the large white tent, none of my card-playing, cool beer drinking buddies paid much attention. One or two shouted something to the effect of, “Man, with waves like that, I ain’t about to get in there.” And the other dude, “Man, go out there and drown!”

    I waded in and was a good distance out when I felt a sudden push of water tugging at my legs, and I fought against it destabilizing me. Then a mammoth, harder wall of water came bearing down with such power that as much as I struggled, I quickly knew I was no match for the powerful, towering waves overtaking me. I tried to yell for help, but the rush of water closed off my voice. I was rapidly sinking, sinking into darkness, deep darkness. I kept struggling as I sank until I finally realized I’d lost to the wall of water all around.

    I, Larry Jackson, a successful Wall Street Investor couldn’t figure out how I got to this particular compelling place. I saw a long line of lost, downtrodden people walking by. The faces of these overlooked, forgotten human beings held tragedy and despair. Every day barely noticed women, men and children seek relief from hunger and the cold and the scorching heat. They come from every race and nation poor, unkempt, dirty, smelling of neglect and abuse.

     That particular northeastern city inhabited an atmosphere of defeat. Nonetheless it reflected working class sections across America that began as settlements back in the 1930s and 1940s for Polish, Irish, Italian and other immigrants flowing into America. Around that time Blacks filed in, transplants from the south, seeking jobs and a better life. Activity and promise now gone, the area sat abandoned, dead silence and desolation hanging over it. Now a number of stray dogs and cats and rats populated it, a place unsuitable for humans, where squirrels and rabbits used to roam.

    I sensed magnanimous elements and ideas floating around in my head as if a satellite transferred me there. I had no idea why I was there, and what to do, yet the location awakened something inside of me. Would these strange surroundings implant a lesson for my future good? I knew little about the downtrodden or broken-down conditions where the poor of the city lived. Here, in this alien environment I felt an overwhelming sense of compassion and hope. I found myself entering the elementary school where my mother taught.

    As I wandered around in a school located in an unfamiliar urban community a sense of comfort and peace accompanied me seemingly due to pleasant memories lingering in the surroundings. The strange mission guided me and I climbed the stairs to the school’s second floor. This particular school, during my journey where my mother taught or someone else might have taught, made my spirits rise.

    Enhancing darkness and light composing my wandering spirit seemed to play host to an atmosphere of idealistic dreams and life.

  Why hadn’t I noticed the many people deserted and left at the bottom of life? After the experience of seeing people living at desperation’s door I vowed that when I returned to reality the ‘down and out’ and ‘needy’ would see me volunteering at a Soup Kitchen and involved in helping charities. Wherever poverty resides, slaying the people, I will help!

     “Rashid! Rashid, what are doing in that line?” He couldn’t hear me. None of them could. In college Rashid and I shared a dorm room. Although he’d lacked opportunity growing up, his intelligence earned him a college scholarship. Nonetheless, drugs took over and he lost his way.

    But then I looked to see another string of people coming down the path toward me. They are well-dressed and some even look prosperous. They walk in silence, looking straight ahead. As the line of people draw near I realize that I recognize some of them. Mr. Carpenter, my man James, Barbara, Mr. and Mrs. Walker, Mr. Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Bernstein, Mr. Moore, Jonathan, Carolyn Jones, Michelle and Bill. The line is endless with friends and other clients, as a Wall Street Investor I’d deceived. My sadness deepens when I think of my boss Bob Ross-his numbers are much, much higher. I saw other people for a variety of reasons in that line of betrayal.   However, regret enveloped me most when I realized that I’d treated people who trusted me, as I would a piece of trash.